The first transatlantic telephone conversation between two deaf people took place on Monday, 12th May, United States Ambassador Elliot L. Richardson (above), having just opened an exhibition of telecommunications equipment at the U.S. Trade Centre in London, first spoke of Alexander Graham Bell, who had intended his telephone 'primarily to help the deaf communicate with each other'. He then welcomed Jack Ashley, MP, who had agreed to place the call to Dr Boyce R. Williams, Director of the Office of Deafness and Communicative Disorders, at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare in Washington, D.C.

'In this era of dramatic developments in communications: Mr Richardson continued, 'we have all been amazed and inspired by live television coverage from the moon. We must not be any less alert or receptive to breakthroughs in methods of communication for the handicapped. This phone call is a significant step in helping the handicapped to take their deserved part in today's world.'

Having established contact with Dr Boyce Williams, Jack
Ashley then spoke to Dr Robert Weitbrecht, the 'Father' of the deaf telephone, who developed the teleprinter modem, and to
Dr Latham Breunig, Executive Director of Teletypewriters for the Deaf Inc.

Jack Ashley conversing with Washington D.C on the MCM
Note this UK version of the MCM has special cups

"ON BEHALF OF 5000 AMERICAN AND CANADIAN MEMBERS WE GREET OUR ENGLISH MEMBERS DAVID HYSLOP ANDREW KENYON MICHAEL KING BEER TERRY WATERS PAUL WARD ANDREA SAKS."
They then switched to the MCM (above). Greetings were exchanged between the British Ambassador in Washington, Sir Peter Ramsbotham, and Ambassador Richardson.

"HOW IS THE FISHING ON HIS PART OF THE RIVER?" To which Jack Ashley replied:

"FINE HE HAS ENJOYED IT VERY MUCH. I SUSPECT THAT AFTER THIS CALL IS OVER HE WILL CLAIM THE LARGEST FISH IN BRITAIN HAS BEEN CAUGHT BY THE AMERICAN EMBASSY"

Andrea J. Saks played a significant role in gaining permission for the
first translantic
TTY call in may 1975. On the day of the call, she held a press conference
at the U.S.
Trade Center Building in London. She has spent most of her adult life in
pursuit of
equity and compatibility in international telecommunications -This
photo Courtesy of
James C. Marsters and
Harry G. Lang - Harry G. Lang Collection at SMECC - Glendale
AZ

Courtesy of James C. Marsters and Harry G. Lang

Courtesy of James C. Marsters and Harry G. Lang

(Left)
The first
authorized
transatlantic
TTY call took place on
May 13,
1975. On the American
side,
Boyce R. Williams,
Director of the
Office
of Deafness and
Communicative Disorders,
Rehabilitation Services Administration of the
Department of Health,
Educa­tion
and Welfare
sat at the
TTY. He was joined
by (left to right) Karl Bakke, Acting Secretary,
Department of Commerce;
British
Ambassador Sir Peter
Ramsbotham; the
Honorable Caspar
Weinberger, Secretary, Department
of HEW; and Charlotte
A. Coffield, Program
Specialist, Office
of Deafness and Communicative Disorders.

(Right) On the British side at the U.S. Trade Center Building in London, deaf Member of Parliament
Jack Ashley typed his message to the Americans. Behind him were Michael King-Beer,
a deaf pioneer with the British TTY network, and U.S. Ambassador
Elliot L. Richardson. Photographs courtesy of P.I.C. PHOTOS LIMITED.

transatlantic-tty Ludington Daily News - Jun 12 1975

670 ELECTRONICS & POWER 12 JUNE 1975
NEWS/INDUSTRY

DEAF PEOPLE INTRANSATLANTICLINK
UP

More than 70 American companies took part in an exhibition at the US Trade Center last month which
had the theme telecommunication systems and equipment. But certainly the major attraction to the
nontechnical Press on the first day of the five-day exhibition was a
trans-Atlantic telephone call between Jack Ashley, MP, and Dr. Boyce Williams, director of the US
Office of Deafness & Communicative Disorders.

Both Mr. Ashley and Dr. Williams are deaf and this telephone call—the first to be made between
two deaf people across the Atlantic— was to demonstrate a new
system that enables people with speech and hearing difficulties to communicate by means of a
teletypewriter and a normal telephone line.

At the centre of the equipment is a 'Phonetype' electronic modem which converts the electrical
impulses of the teletypewriter into sound impulses. The two communicants then converse by typing
their messages back and forth on the teletypewriters, which are connected to their personal modems.

The Phonetype was invented about ten years ago in America by a deaf physicist, Dr. Robert H.
Weitbrecht. An updated version of the 'Phonetype', the MCM, is an acoustic modem with a teletypewriter-
type keyboard and a 32-character l.e.d. screen. The Phonetype system with Teleprinter
costs £190 plus v.a.t. and the MCM device, not having yet been sold in Britain, costs approximately
$625 (Encircle 70).

Michael
Kingbeer,
deaf leader,
watches
Sir Jack
Ashley,
deaf member
of Parliament,
makes the
TTY
call while
Andrea Saks
(playing
peek-a-boo),
and US
Ambassador
Elliot Richardson
observes.
(man in the back
is unidentified)

A
notable
event
occurred
May 12, 1975
when
a number
of TDI
members,
arranged
by Executive
Director
Latham
Bruenig,
gathered
to observe
and to
participate
in the
first
authorized
transatlantic
TTY conversation
between
the
Department
of Health
Education
and Welfare
in Washington
D.C. and
the
World
Trade Show
in London, England.
At the
present
time
TTY calls
to and from England
are not permitted
under
the tariffs
because
they
are classified
as "data
transmission"
which
is not
allowed
to be fed
into the USA voice
grade telephone
lines.
The concept
of using
TTYs for
inter-personal
conversation,
like regular
telephone
calls, is
still
relatively
new.

Now:
Recent Advances in
United Kingdom(as of 1993)

Al Sonnenstrahl
receives the call while the
members
of the
Council
of Organizational
Representatives
watch.

Christopher
Jones, vice
president
of Teletec
International,
calls
AI Sonnenstrahl
from the public
text telephone
in London
while Judy Tingley
looks on.

Christopher
Jones,
a top executive
from Teletec
International,
the
UK distributor
of the
new
text
pay phone,
will
be
one of
the
first
commuters
to benefit
from the
system,
currently
on trial
by BT.
Mr Jones,
Vice President
of the
Milton
Keynes
company,
has
been
deaf for most
of his
life.
At a London
press
conference,
he
said:
"If
the
trial
is
successful,
my
business
life
will be
easier."
"People
in
the
UK who
are
deaf,
hard of
hearing,
or who
have speech
impairments,
are going
to find the
text
pay phone
of benefit
because
it will allow
them
to make calls
more conveniently
when
they
are
out
of the
home
or office."

The
new BT text
pay phone,
manufactured
by Ultratec,
an American
company, will
enable
deaf
commuters
to make
pay
phone
calls
throughout
the
world.

Note - The Teleprinter used on
the UK side of the experiments was a CREED model 7.

Note from Dr. Robert H. Weitbrecht. to
Mike Cannon at MICON wishing him good luck on the
English MCMs Prior to the U.K. - U.S.A. Transatlantic test.

From
the Michael Cannon MICOM Collection at SMECC
_______________________________________________________

Biography
Ms Andrea Saks is a known advocate for ICTs for persons with disabilities. She grew in a family of two deaf
parents and assisted them from an early age as their interface with the hearing world: She as responsible making
doctors’ appointments, arranging guests’ visits and other appointments by using the telephone which was then
inaccessible to her family without her.

Her father, the late Andrew Saks, the late Robert Weitbrecht and James C. Marsters (who recently died July
2009) were the first pioneers deaf themselves, who created deaf telecommunications using surplus
teletypewriters and modems that spread throughout the world. These devices were the precursors of textphones
and today’s real-time text messaging.

She took that role to the next level when she relocated from the US to the UK in 1972 to promote the use of
textphones internationally. She worked with the British Government Post Office (then the regulator of UK
telecommunications) and was granted a license for connection of text telephones on the regular telephone
network. She was able to successfully lobby the US FCC to allow the first transatlantic textphone conversation
over the voice telephone network (1975). Her first involvement with ITU standardization activity started in 1991
and has ever since increased in scope. Self-funded, she currently attends many ITU-T study group and focus
group meetings promoting the inclusion of accessibility functionality in systems being standardized by ITU,
such as multimedia conferencing, cable, IPTV and NGN. After the recent creation of ITU-D Q20/1 on
accessibility matters by WTDC-06, she also started attending that group and now performs as a bridge between
the two sectors on accessibility for persons with disabilities. She has been a key person in the creation of all
accessibility events in ITU, and currently is the convener of the recently formed joint coordination activity on
accessibility and human factors, as well as the coordinator of the Internet Governance Forum’s Dynamic
Coalition on Accessibility and Disability. In 2008 she was given the ITU World Telecommunication and
Information Society Award and made a Laureate for her lifelong work in accessibility to telecommunications
and ICTs for persons with Disabilities.

“Information
deprivation and bad access is the problem, not the
disability.”

Andrea Saks

Renowned
advocate of ICT for people with disabilities

Andrea Saks first became
involved in ITU work in 1991. Self-funded, she attends
many meetings of study groups and focus groups of the ITU
Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU–T),
promoting the inclusion of accessibility standards.
Through attending Study Group 1 of the Telecommunication
Development Sector (ITU–D) in its consideration of
Question 20, she also acts as a bridge between the two
Sectors on the issue.
Ms Saks has been key in the creation of accessibility
events at ITU, and is the convener of the Joint
Coordination Activity on Accessibility and Human Factors
(JCA-AHF). She is also the coordinator of the Internet
Governance Forum’s Dynamic
Coalition on Accessibility and Disability.

Winner of an
ITU World Telecommunication and Information Society Award 2008,
Andrea Saks is the daughter of deaf parents, whom, from an early
age, she helped to interact with the hearing world. Her father,
Andrew Saks, was a pioneer in developing telecommunication
technology for people with hearing difficulties. Ms Saks thus has a
strong personal background and interest in the field of information
and communication technologies (ICT) for people with disabilities.
At the Award ceremony in Cairo, she underlined her commitment to
making ICT accessible to all, telling her story in her own words:

I started working with my parents as a
two-year-old relay service. This is a service where the hearing
person makes the call for the deaf person so they can communicate
with the outside world. It must have been a horrific experience for
my parents to rely on a two-year-old, but I thought I did a great
job. I got better at it by the time I was three. But by the time I
was fourteen, I probably was another nightmare, because teenagers
are not all that cooperative.

My father and mother met through the oddest
circumstance, and it depicts the problem of what deaf people went
through, and in some cases, still go through… My father stopped to
help this person change a flat tyre in the middle of the night —
as you did in those days, without fear — and he was surprised that
this man knew to face him and speak to him, so he could lip read. My
father asked him “how do you know?” The man said “well,
there’s this beautiful deaf girl living next door”. That was my
mother. The gentleman didn’t tell my father his name. But my
father had written down his licence plate number, and this helped
him trace where my mother was.

Andrea Saks

Andrew and Jean Saks, the parents of Andrea, were both
deaf, and, as a child, she helped them communicate with
others

My father was not born deaf — but was
robbed of his hearing through a mastoid infection. He was an oral
speaker. He had the advantage of having parents who had the funds to
educate him. So he didn’t know any sign language. My mother, who
was also totally deaf, was the daughter of a dual national and was
educated in Britain… She was an oral speaker too. This was unusual
in those times; there were very few oral deaf people as not everyone
had the funds to educate their deaf children to speak.

My father was an engineer. He really was
angry that he couldn’t use the phone as it prevented him from
participating in business life. By chance, he met a wonderful
character by the name of Robert Weitbrecht, a deaf physicist, who
used to do radio TTY ship-to-shore with a telex machine. And with
his other friend, Dr James Marsters, who was also deaf, the three of
them decided they could convert this technology into something they
could use over the phone. They had very little money to do it; they
had no support from industry, because it was a very specialized
market and therefore it was not economically viable. But they did it
— they invented a modem.

However, they had no printing device. They
had to use old surplus teleprinters… So they created
Teletypewriters for the Deaf Incorporated (TDI), now known as
Telecommunications for the Deaf, Inc. They got the equipment up and
running, and started talking over the phone — typing the words in
the original real-time text (which, by the way, is now standardized
by ITU). And they were able to reconvert old, surplus teleprinters
which were donated to TDI.

The deaf community got their shirt sleeves
rolled up and reconditioned those machines… and they shipped them
across the country. And they did it all themselves. It’s
remarkable. But looking back, I was a little annoyed — I’d lost
my powerful place in life. They didn’t need me any more. But they
had to communicate with the outside world, and relay services
weren’t quite up and running yet. So I still had some involvement.

The phenomenon was so important that all my
mother’s friends began to write to her, saying “we want this
too”. So they (my parents) encouraged me to go to England, and
with the British Post Office we started the first deaf telephone
network that was international. And we did the first deaf
transatlantic call (in 1975)… It was a resounding success… it
showed interpersonal text communication was something that people
needed and could do, and it’s one of the reasons that fax slowly
exploded into another wonderful tool we used… Hearing people may
not realize it, but the deaf gave you the right to access data
across the voice telephone network.

Because there were differences in different
countries… this made new barriers for deaf people. One of the
problems was that the British wanted to use Telecom Gold, which was
an early form of e-mail. So they destroyed the network that enabled
American deaf and British deaf people to communicate, because they
wanted to do something better. There was no standardization — none
whatsoever… We were isolated again. Other countries also wanted to
give deaf people communication, and began to make text phones…
France went to Minitel; Italy and Germany had other techniques.

That’s when I got to ITU. They nearly
threw me out because I didn’t have any credentials, but
fortunately, the US State Department representative decided it might
be an interesting idea, and they officially put me into a
delegation. That was 1991, and I’ve been coming to ITU ever since.
And what I tried to do at ITU was to put a human face on technology,
to make engineers understand that the modem didn’t terminate the
call, the human being did. I want people to understand that ITU was
very receptive to me as an individual. The resistance came from
ignorance, or the fact they felt that they were going to have to
spend too much money. Or, the fact that they didn’t understand how
easy or how difficult it might be to implement something. We did
have a wonderful standard that was called V.18, which invisibly
translated all the flavours of text phones… Also, e-mail came
along, instant messaging came along, and deaf people began to use
other kinds of communication. But nothing is quite like real-time
text.

Lack of standardization was the problem that
caused the fracturing of the deaf telephone network. Standardization
is necessary. The most important thing we can do is promote good
standards that include accessibility features; mainstream them, not
make them special… The feeling I have is that now the engineers
get it. They really understand. I walk into a room. They know I am
there, we work together. I look at a document, we see how we can put
in certain features to make it better. I’ve been working with IPTV,
which is Internet protocol television. I’ve been working with NGN,
the next-generation network, so that, within the requirements
documents, people’s needs are expressed.

The next step is implementation. This is up
to legislators and regulators, because industry does have to be
encouraged; because it does sometimes cost extra money to do these
things… Ten per cent of the world has a disability of some kind.
Information deprivation and bad access is the problem, not the
disability.

I really hope that all of you… encourage
people to use universal design from the beginning; that we have
people who design whatever it is — whether it’s a gateway… or
a device, or a software package, or a television programme of some
kind that is going to be emitted through a set-top box — and that
we make standards. ITU has been leading the world in accessibility
standards. I’m very much an ITU lady. They gave me a home; they
basically support what I do, and now we want all of you to support
ITU in standardization. We need to have a global standards body that
encourages outside people to join, so that standards are accessible
and are worldwide and enable disabled people to access ICT.

The beginning at ITU: 1991

Gary Fereno, US State Department &
Andrea J. Saks

Contact
Andrea J. Saks

Convener, ITU-T Joint Coordination Activity on
Accessibility

and Human Factors, (JCA-AHF)

Coordinator, Internet Governance Forum,

Dynamic Coalition on Accessibility and Disability

(IGF
DCAD)

TDI Representative to ITU (website)

Accessibility Advisor to USA delegations attending ITU-T
and

ITU-D Study Groups.

E-mails: asaks@waitrose.com;

andrea.saks@ties.itu.int.

TTYs spread next to the UK
14 October 1972: Andrea J. Saks (AJS)
arrived in UK with two Phonetypes but no
printing device.

AJS met with Government Post Office and
begins testing in the GPO Lab with two
donated creed teleprinters
Sir Brian Carsburg, Chairman of OFTEL in
the 1970’s stated:

“Disability communication should be
regarded in the same way as rural
communication”

The Progress in the UK
The Breakthrough Trust (a deaf and hearing nonprofit
group) joins forces with APCOM
APCOM lets AJS stay in the UK to help with GPO
trial.

First TTY Transatlantic Call: 1975
Due to anti-trust regulation, data was not
allowed across the transatlantic voice
network. FCC waived the rule for this call
for one day only.

What it meant to USA and UK Deaf people:
one could talk over the trans- Atlantic voice
telephone network, using data or i.e. text
Faxing (an ITU standard V.21) across
the transatlantic voice network became
legal because of the Deaf, breaking the
FCC docket.

Decibel (DB) rates lowered by GPO in the UK
There was no satellite or Internet, only a
cable under the sea: This causes a reduced
transmission accuracy and during storms
lots of garble and crossed lines (famous
black dot)

Overview
The beginning of Globalization
-- 1973: the UK Government Post Office
officially granted trial licenses for 5 TTYs
stations to operate over a glass of sherry.

-- Mid 70’s Compatibility? We were able to
text to the USA from the UK with minor
adjustments! NO direct dial from USA!

Ms Andrea Saks
Andrea Saks is a known advocate for ICTs for persons with disabilities.

Her father, Andrew Saks, together with James C. Marsters and Robert Weitbrecht were
pioneers of deaf telecommunications using surplus teletypewriters and modems – the
precursors of textphones and today’s real-time text messaging. She grew in a family of two
deaf parents and assisted them from an early age as their interface with the hearing world:
getting doctors’ appointments, arranging guests’ visits, etc.

She took that role to the next level when she relocated from the US to the UK in 1972 to
promote the use of textphones internationally. She was able to successfully lobby the British
Government Post Office (the then-regulator of telecommunications) to allow the first
transatlantic textphone conversation (1975) and to grant a license for connection of text
telephones on the regular telephone network.

Her first involvement with ITU standardization activity started in 1991 and has ever since
increased in scope. Self-funded, she currently
attends many ITU-T study group and focus group meetings promoting the inclusion of
accessibility functionality in systems being standardized by ITU, such as multimedia
conferencing, cable, IPTV and NGN. After the recent creation of ITU-D Q20/1 on accessibility
matters by WTDC-06, she also started attending that group and now performs as a bridge
between the two sectors on the issue.

She has been a key person in the creation of all accessibility events in ITU, and currently is the
convener of the recently formed joint coordination activity on accessibility and human factors,
as well as the coordinator of the Internet Governance Forum’s Dynamic Coalition on
Accessibility and Disability.

RNID broke it
RNID decided to go with Telecom Gold,
and CCITT 300 baud to be modern
– RNID tried to dismantle the Baudot TTY network in
a buy back and tried to impose the new textphone.
– Ireland does not conform. Also the
“now- unrecognized Baudot TTY network” continues
to be used in the UK in spite of the official UK denial
France develops the Minitel
Italy and German uses EDT Textphones
Holland uses DTMF Textphones

Many people tried to FIX it!
International Portable Textphones
Micon Ind. created the first British MCM
portable textphone and then an International
version followed:
the dual baud MCM was used in the First
Deaf Transatlantic Call in 1975.
Ultratec, a textphone manufacturer creates in
the 1980s, a very tiny multi-protocol portable
textphones called “the compact”, but always
had inside the original Baudot default protocol.
AJS and Dick Brandt went to ITU to begin the
first International standards process for TTY’s

Laureates 2008: The ITU World
Telecommunication and Information Society Award is presented
to Ms. Andrea Saks by ITU Secretary-General Dr Hamadoun Touré
during the Ceremony of the World Telecommunication and
Information Society Day 2008

http://youtu.be/b7B9s7XmzCs

Laureates 2008: The ITU World Telecommunication
and Information Society Award is presented to Ms. Andrea Saks by
ITU Secretary-General Dr Hamadoun Touré during the Ceremony of
the World Telecommunication and Information Society Day 2008

Ms Andrea Saks

Andrea Saks is a known advocate for ICTs for persons with disabilities.

Her father, Andrew Saks, together with James C. Marsters and Robert Weitbrecht were
pioneers of deaf telecommunications using surplus teletypewriters and modems – the
precursors of textphones and today’s real-time text messaging. She grew in a family of two
deaf parents and assisted them from an early age as their interface with the hearing world:
getting doctors’ appointments, arranging guests’ visits, etc.

She took that role to the next level when she relocated from the US to the UK in 1972 to
promote the use of textphones internationally. She was able to successfully lobby the British
Government Post Office (the then-regulator of telecommunications) to allow the first
transatlantic textphone conversation (1975) and to grant a license for connection of text
telephones on the regular telephone network.

Her first involvement with ITU standardization activity started in 1991 and has ever since
increased in scope. Self-funded, she currently attends many ITU-T study group and focus group meetings promoting the inclusion of
accessibility functionality in systems being standardized by ITU, such as multimedia
conferencing, cable, IPTV and NGN. After the recent creation of ITU-D Q20/1 on accessibility
matters by WTDC-06, she also started attending that group and now performs as a bridge
between the two sectors on the issue.

She has been a key person in the creation of all accessibility events in ITU, and currently is the
convener of the recently formed joint coordination activity on accessibility and human factors,
as well as the coordinator of the Internet Governance Forum’s Dynamic Coalition on
Accessibility and Disability.

Everyday we rescue items you
see on these pages!
What do you have hiding in a closet or garage?
What could you add to the museum displays or the library?